Probabilistic analysis of three-player symmetric quantum games played using the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen–Bohm setting

Abstract

This Letter extends our probabilistic framework for two-player quantum games to the multiplayer case, while giving a unified perspective for both classical and quantum games. Considering joint probabilities in the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen–Bohm (EPR–Bohm) setting for three observers, we use this setting in order to play general three-player noncooperative symmetric games. We analyze how the peculiar non-factorizable joint probabilities provided by the EPR–Bohm setting can change the outcome of a game, while requiring that the quantum game attains a classical interpretation for factorizable joint probabilities. In this framework, our analysis of the three-player generalized Prisoner's Dilemma (PD) shows that the players can indeed escape from the classical outcome of the game, because of non-factorizable joint probabilities that the EPR setting can provide. This surprising result for three-player PD contrasts strikingly with our earlier result for two-player PD, played in the same framework, in which even non-factorizable joint probabilities do not result in escaping from the classical consequence of the game.